Anyone remember that really old game Outpost? It ran on Windows 3.1; used a CD recording of The Planets as its soundtrack. That's the first time I've heard of Tokamak reactors.
What these are trying to achieve is pretty amazing. I hope one day, one of these reactors will be able to sustain a greater output than input. It has the potential to move the planet into a completely different energy age. Imagine if we could build something with that kind of energy output on Mars.
Funny, the picture instantly reminded me of the Shinra and its reactors in Final Fantaisy VII :) [1]
Regarding Mars, I would love someone who knows to tell us how this would compare to raw sun energy exploitation. Each time I think of solar energy, I can't help but think it's a waste to try to collect it under the atmosphere, given one of its useful properties is precisely to protect us from the sun. My thinking usually then go into thinking a solar farm would be way more efficient in space, or on Mars. Could someone debunk or confirm this?
The biggest problem with setting a solar farm in space is efficient energy transfer [1]. Bezos proposes to build also industrial zones in space, but then the problem is raw material transfer [2]. The easiest thing to do is to reap what you can here on surface of the Earth.
Orbital solar is such a fantastic idea, until you realize that any kind of energy transfer at useful scales is almost by necessity going to be strategically equivalent to a BF laser beam. Needless to say, that's going to be a tricky subject in the current geopolitical climate.
I'm reminded of the book "The Mote in God's Eye", which featured an alien race using an enormous orbital laser array to launch an interstellar solar sail vehicle. The launch was pretty much the crowning achievement of the race, and also the pretty much the last one, as the launch laser was almost immediately turned back on the planet itself.
God, I hated that game; Outpost was my No Man's Sky. It was an overhyped game that did not deliver on the promised features and was peddled by computer magazine shills as the greatest thing.
You're thinking about the novel Earth by David Brin. Outpost 2 had gray goo gobbling up a space colony that was made up of the last remnants of Earth that escaped an asteroid strike.
Hmm, you might be thinking of the second one, the RTS? The first had Earth struck by an asteroid that split in two when trying to defend. The entire game was on a far planet you travelled to, turn based strategy I believe.
I personally enjoyed the novella that came with it more than the game itself. I got frustrated having to beat these stupid levels in order to read the next chapter..
What these are trying to achieve is pretty amazing. I hope one day, one of these reactors will be able to sustain a greater output than input. It has the potential to move the planet into a completely different energy age. Imagine if we could build something with that kind of energy output on Mars.